“No, no!” sighed Ruth. “It is nothing like that. I had finished the scenario. I had it all just about as I wanted it, and then——”
“Then what?” he asked in wonder at her emotion.
“It—it was stolen!”
“Stolen?”
“Yes. And all my notes—everything! I—I can’t talk about it. And I never could write it again,” sobbed Ruth. “It is the best thing I ever did, Mr. Hammond.”
“If it is better than ‘The Heart of a Schoolgirl’, or ‘The Forty-Niners’, or ‘The Boys of the Draft’, then it must be some scenario, Miss Ruth. The last two are still going strong, you know. And I have hopes of the ‘Seaside Idyl’ catching the public fancy just when we are all getting rather weary of war dramas.
“If you can only rewrite this new story——”
“But Mr. Hammond! I am sure it has been stolen by somebody who will make use of it. Some other producer may put it on the screen, and then my version would fall flat—if no worse.”
“Humph! And you have been so secret about it!”
“I took your advice, Mr. Hammond. I have told nobody about it—not a thing!”